Picking up again with the Yahoo-newspaper consortium call ... can’t help wondering if there’s some formula to determine the likelihood of success based on how many different entities are involved in any given deal. The call was hosted by MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton and Hearst Newspapers CEO George Irish and featured the top three Yahoo execs involved along with top execs from the other publishers. There’s power in numbers; there’s also a lot more people to please. On the plus side, no one entity on the consortium side of this mix is so big that it should be able to pull out and undo the whole. From the call:
MembershipThis is not a closed consortium: Other newspapers are invited to join and some already are interested.
Timeline: Selling job listings on HotJobs comes first and will be immediate. Q1 for the HotJobs platform; Q2, Q3 for starting to add other elements.
Existing relationships: Lincoln Millstein, Hearst: “All of us have existing relationships potentially with other third parties ... We’re committed to working with Yahoo first in these important categories in hopes of developing much more meaningful relationships … if we achieve (those) we’re willing to revisit some of our pre-existing relationships.”
Future plans: Yahoo CFO Sue Decker: “We announced a definitive agreement on the job side and a broad agreement to work together.”
Scope: The immediate ability to scale appealed to Scripps. which saw a chance to provide opportunities to all of its papers. Scripps CEO Ken Lowe: “We were somewhat limited in the few markets with which we were partnering with CareerBuilder.” Also appealing, the variety of opportunities.
Exclusivity: The arrangement with Yahoo HotJobs is exclusive so Monster and CareerBuilder are not options. Other elements are not exclusive necessarily.
Why Yahoo?: Lots of talk about how much Yahoo brings to the mix in terms of the kinds of features, its role as a content company, its platform and technology, its traffic. “There were other choices but they were limited. Some of us looked at joining CareerBuilder but that’s strictly a career site and that’s where it stops. Some of us looked at joining Monster but that is strictly a career joint venture and that’s where it stops. With Yahoo, it opens many, many doors that we need to have open to us and they were uniquely qualified to do that.”
Giving too much to Yahoo?: Singleton: “We have very successful web sites that are doing extremely well already and we will continue to have very success web sites but we will be using those sites working with Yahoo. We really see it as 1+1=3 rather than turning anything over to anybody. We will run our normal business and they will run their normal business. ... There’s revenue sharing on both sides. ... We really become to a large extent he local sales force online and Yahoo is national and broader....”
Impact on Yahoo: Decker: Nothing material this year, really a 2007 deal. ”It is material to our strategy. We are totally focused on creating the broadest array of ad offerings.” She mentioned hiring Hilary Schneider as part of the strategy. No details about financials though.
Offline: This may be surprising to some observers (and even some insiders) but the discussions to dat have not included Yahoo selling ads for the print edition. Singleton: “That’s not to say we couldn’t have those ... “
Meaning: Much emphasis on the announcement being proof that traditional media can navigate the internet and survive. Not much on coming up doing it in late 2006.
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Related:  Yahoo-Newspapers: More Details: Search, Local Listings Included; Co-Branded Online
-- It’s Official: Yahoo HotJobs-Seven Newspaper Publishers Join Forces; Deal Includes Local News